Nigeria’s reserves have increased steadily, reaching $34.14 billion on Friday after increasing by 4.06% from $32.74 billion on June 3, 2024, according to figures released by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

To support the nation’s energy distribution industry, the government obtained a $500 million loan from the World Bank, as revealed by the Bureau of Public Enterprises in May. The World Bank also disclosed that the nation would get $2.25 billion in assistance to stabilize the economy. The most recent loan rounds increased the nation’s reserves that the World Bank provided to the Federal Government.

“This combined $2.25bn package provides immediate financial and technical support to Nigeria’s urgent efforts to stabilise the economy and scale up support to the poor and most economically at risk. It further supports Nigeria’s ambitious, multi-year effort to raise non-oil revenues and safeguard oil revenues to promote fiscal sustainability and provide sufficient resources to deliver quality public services.” The multilateral lender stated in a statement.

As a result, in just one month, the external reserves have increased by nearly $1 billion. Due to the nation’s dollar shortfall last year, the central bank was compelled to flog the naira to boost foreign cash inflow.

Following that, the local currency lost approximately 300% of its value in a year, closing at 1,514.31/$ on Friday at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange market.

In the first half of 2024, the naira was the world’s worst-performing currency, according to a Bloomberg analysis released on Friday. It stated that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s attempts to fortify the currency had been hampered by devaluation, a lack of dollar liquidity, and market volatility.

Other than the naira, the world’s poorest-performing currencies in the first half of the year were the pound in Egypt and the cedi in Ghana.

“The naira’s performance is the worst among global currencies tracked by Bloomberg beside that of the pound in Lebanon, which is undergoing an economic crisis and witnessing dollarisation,” the report noted.

Olayemi Cardoso, the governor of the CBN, said that the central bank was “relatively pleased” with the strides achieved in stabilizing the value of the local currency.

“I do believe that we have more or less seen the worst volatility,” Cardoso told Bloomberg TV.

“The losing streak is the longest since July 2017 and takes the decline since the start of the year to 40 per cent.

To increase the quantity of dollars in the nation and stabilize the value of the local currency, the central bank has implemented several measures. International Money Transfer Operators now have access to the official window for selling foreign exchange, the apex bank stated last week.

The central bank stated in a circular that was signed by Dr W.J. Kanya, the acting director of the Trade and Exchange Department, that the action would allow IMTOs to get naira liquidity through the official window, facilitating the prompt settlement of remittances from the diaspora.